


Smoke in the Sky

by Charmtion



Series: Warmth in Winter [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ... and the Fic that Stitches them Back Together, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Mild Sexual Content, Post S8, The Finale that Forced them Apart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-11 21:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19117642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmtion/pseuds/Charmtion
Summary: It does no good;heis there with every breath and beat of blood in her body. Even up on deck, he follows, wrenching himself free of the tangled sheets of her lonely little bunk, drifting after her as she paces to and fro: a shadow at her shoulder, a sun-warm sigh at her nape, a fingertip breezing down her back. Angry —aching— she turns to grab at him; but he is only air, cool as the ashes of a long dead fire, sifting as sand through her fingers.Arya and Gendry are separated by snow and sea, ship and shore — but the storm their hearts share will soon draw them back together [post8x06].





	1. West

_West_ , it is the word that lingers long after she has spoken it. A fragile, soft-feathered little fledgling, that word; it swoops and flutters between the salt of sky and sea. _West_. She says it half a hundred times — west, west, _west_ — till the captain turns from her, rounds on his crew, leaves her to whisper at the waves.

Soon, her whispers are lost to the drone of the crew. Like bees to a hive, the way they buzz and flit and swarm; back and forth, back and forth, till the blackwood boat is hemmed in on all sides by raw, dark sea. It churns and groans as the sails fill and the prow cuts through the whitecaps. _West_. Her fingers twitch on the rail. _Before_ , she would have thought the prow cuts easy as a polished knife into skin, slipping a seam of red against flesh of cream. Beautiful in its own cold, deadly way. Now — _after_ — she thinks only of her own heart, cut to shreds against the crooks of her ribs with every league the sea puts between the blackwood boat and the land left far behind her. _West_ …

Above, the sky turns blue-black as a soft rain starts to fall. She glances up from the slate sea, drinks in the press of cloud and stormy sunlight; a shiver rattles her teeth to feel the raindrops land as cool kisses on her cheeks. Slow as sun-warmed snakes, the trails they weave — drop by drop — across her skin, dipping over the curve of her jaw, slipping a single salt-streak down the long white line of her throat. She catches that drop with a fingertip, lifts it to her open lips, lets it settle on her tongue.

It tastes of storm and steel — of _him_.

 

*

 

He wakes to a world that feels colder, like the grey ashes of a fire long burnt out. The chamber’s hearth is burning merrily; the servants keep it so — the servants keep _everything_ so — feeding the flames of his own keep and little kingdom, making its blood flow warm even as his sits icy in the valleys of his veins. Branch by branch, they chop and collect and cast, setting woodsmoke filtering through the chimneys steady as the sea that beats at the rocks beneath Storm’s End — yet still he wakes each morn colder than the last.

There is a copper tub set before the hearth — _servants, does their work never cease?_ — giving off near as much steam as smoke from the fire. He sinks into it, curls till it is only his head bobbing as an apple above the water, feels it lap against his chin as sea-waves to a ship’s body. _West_ … It strikes at him like an arrow to the heart, _that_ word.

 _West_ , she’d said, her eyes fixed on the horizon over his shoulder: flat grey river-stones watching her voice float as a feather out to sea. _West_. He’d turned to follow her gaze, watched that feather-light word melt like morning mists in the midday sun — his heart along with it. _West_ … Sleek as a raven’s wings, she’d tossed her dark head, set her shoulders square, and turned away from it all: hearth, home, heart tree — _him_.

He stays in the tub till the water feels near as cold as his own blood; an icy sweep that prickles his skin, pumped by that frost-edged knot of stone and sorrow rattling sadly between the crooks of his ribs. _West_ … The water closes with a sigh over his head as he ducks his face beneath its ripples, feels his ears bulk at the pressure of it; like a lover’s whisper, it floods skin, bone, blood-beat till at last his head rings silent.

 

*

 

Day’s end draws more than darkness to her cabin. Wraiths creep in with the shadows, twisting and flickering to stretch their shapes upon the worn floorboards, the threadbare carpets, the scattered furs and linens of her lonely little bunk. Dreams crowd her, too, once the candle is blown out.

Blackened hands, ice-blue eyes, guttural shouts, the screams of the dying. Somewhere above her, a dragon cuts the sky to ribbons beneath its wings; scarlet and ebony, the heat it looses from between its teeth, burning up the snow as wildfire to brick and rooftile and teetering crimson castle. Death rides upon it: snowy, sweet-smelling, reigning down fire and blood to the sing-song peal of half a hundred silver bells. A girl with a wooden toy clasped in her charred fist, a horse pale as the heart of winter, the taste of soot and smoke and salt turning her tongue red with its rust.

Through it all, a voice. _M’lady_. Thin as the film of sweat that clings to her brow as she tosses restless as the sea in her lonely little bunk. _Arya_. Rising stronger now, a clash of thunder to drown the pulse of wingbeat and wildfire, the weeping, the wailing, the fall of a city crashing — brick by brick — down around her. _Love, look at me_ …

She wakes, _gasping_ — a drowned woman breaking through saltwater to gulp down air, ears still ringing with the anvil-strike of that steely voice hammering at her heart even in the depths of darkness and dreams. _Gen_ — she half thinks it, stops herself with an angry sigh, rolls onto her belly, buries her face in the pillow and counts halfway to a hundred, pressing her eyes tight shut to fight all thoughts of hearth, home, heart tree — _him_ — that rock her belly sudden as a storm.

It does no good; _he_ is there with every breath and beat of blood in her body. Even up on deck, he follows, wrenching himself free of the tangled sheets of her lonely little bunk, drifting after her as she paces to and fro: a shadow at her shoulder, a sun-warm sigh at her nape, a fingertip breezing down her back. Angry — _aching_ — she turns to grab at him; but he is only air, cool as the ashes of a long dead fire, sifting as sand through her fingers.

A voice at her elbow — _m’lady?_ — and her throat rattles, her heart bursts, her fingertips ache to sink themselves full of every little grain of sand she can find; but she turns to see only the captain’s wind-weathered face, black brow quirked as he asks after what course she would set for the day ahead. Her lips part, the words trip from her tongue before she can swallow them —

“Gendry,” she says softly. “ _Home_.”

 

*

 

A thousand stone-cut steps pass beneath his boots — on and on and _on_ — till at last he bursts out onto the tower’s very top. The wind is icy cold, flattening his fur-trimmed tunic to the hard lines of his body, snatching at the cloak streaming from his shoulders. He strides right into it, some god of storm kept firm on his feet even as Maester Jurne rocks back with the strength of the gale blowing up off the sea.

“My lord… my _lord_.” Like the ravens he tends, the maester’s nervous voice squawks and snips for mastery over the salt-winds that seek to drown it out. “The edge, the _edge_ … get _back_ from the edge, Lord Gendry, I beg you.” Red-rimmed eyes and salt-wind tears on his cheeks, he grips at his master’s arm. “Everyday you look for new ships in the bay… but always from your window, never from the tower’s top. What has changed, my lord?”

“Something has shifted,” he says, narrowing his eyes at the cloud-streaked hills, the storm-tossed sea. “I can smell it, _see_ it — clear as smoke in the sky.” He leads the maester back toward the stone-cut steps. “Keep an eye to the harbour, an ear to the ground… I would know soon as it rolls in.”

“Soon as _what_ rolls in, my lord?” Maester Jurne gropes for the railing, clinging white-knuckled as the wind snatches at his worn grey robes. “A ship? A storm?”

Gendry smiles quietly at the white-tipped sea, the swirls of cloud peppering the western sky. “Aye, ship and storm both — and the she-wolf that sails upon them.”

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NB** : a one-shot that grew a little unruly… so here is my very first multi-chapter Gendrya fic, ta-da! ✨ It will eventually (probably…) be grouped into a series with its unofficial prequels: [Firelight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18589807) & [Ash to Ember](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661594) — both of which I so dearly loved writing that I _needed_ to finish my little take on the story of Arya and Gendry. I hope you enjoyed it — please feel free to leave feedback; final chapters soon to follow! ❤️


	2. Forest Lass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Softer by firelight, that much is still true: every curve and dip and ebb and rise of her. Bones and breath and blood-beat; the warmth of her skin pressed like some sweet, secret song against the valleys of his body.’  
> 
>
>> Featuring Matchmaker Davos and a song about a featherbed... if you care to, leave a comment; I would love to hear your thoughts. ❤️

The blackwood boat she leaves behind till it is distant as a memory: a grey-sailed hiding place, sheltering that lonely little bunk still damp with the tears and terrors of her dreams. It bobs and weaves on an iron sea, cutting a course to new lands and old shores; she watches it surge toward the horizon, gives half a smile, and turns her horse’s head away from it.

She cuts a new path now, as she did all those weeks at sea. _East_ … Soon her days are filled with sounds that seem half-familiar: clattering hoofbeat, whispering mountain grasses, bare black boughs shivering in the breeze, the burbling of an icy brook — each and all so much softer than creaking sails and crashing saltwater. Here, the air is free of salt; hard-bitten by frost, still she breathes it deep, feels it burning like firewine the valley of her throat, sweeter than the honey she breaks her fast with.

Even now, she sups on it as the mare takes a drink at a stream, turns her face to the sky to catch a tendril of the sun’s silvery warmth. She stares at clouds white as starlight, knits her brows at their snow-heavy bellies; the breeze ruffles the fur-trimmed collar of her cloak, throws its whispers against her cheeks. _When the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies_ … Her fingers find the twist of bone-and-blade at her hip; she runs a thumb over its pommel, takes a rattling breath to think of the warmth she sought after her fight at winter’s icy heart: storm-blue eyes, roughshod hands, whispers warm as woodsmoke at her throat, her ears, her lips. _But the pack survives_ …

Shivering, she pushes the mare on over the river-smooth pebbles, sets her shoulders as the wind picks up and the clouds make ready to burst open. _East_ … Glen, upland, frost-fingered forest; she rides on through it all, swaying in her saddle beneath a snow-heavy sky, following the frantic pull of her heart.

 

*

 

It starts in drifts, shivering specks spun to silver by the weak sunlight. He stands on the tower’s top, stormy eyes upturned. Like smoke in the sky, the way the clouds spread, heavy-bellied with the snow that settles as ash all around him. Soon, the world is white; but the sea stays iron-grey as the eyes that haunt his dreams. _West_ … It whips and whirls, throws its whitecaps restlessly against the rocks, but it does not bring a ship to his port, a storm to his castle, a she-wolf to his arms.

After that first day, the maester ceased to follow him up the thousand stone-cut steps; most oft he stands alone, some god of storm wreathed in silver sunlight, cloaked in snow, cobalt gaze a mirror to the sea it rests upon — so this morn, the voice startles him.

“Maester Jurne sent me up… gripped my arm, gave me fair warning I may find our lord near tumbling over the tower’s edge.”

Gendry gives a gruff of laughter, half-turning to look over his shoulder. “The maester worries for naught. I don’t come up here to weep… I come here to _wait_.”

“Aye, told him as much.” Davos steps up beside his lord, steeples his stunted fingers together as he gazes out at the sea. “But still he worries… that old maester has served at Storm’s End most his life. You’re the last stag left to him — and he would keep you very much hale and hearty, my lord.”

Snow-melt drips from his lashes, salty as a tear. “Up here there are no lords or sers, Davos Seaworth.” He gestures to the snow-swept stone underfoot, the churning iron waves whipping at the wind. “Up here, I am only Gendry, bastard-born, ’prentice smith… a lad with only a hammer to his name, and the fair fine helm he made with it.”

“ _Lad_ is right, you put a song in my head standing there like that.” He hums a little beneath his breath, rough and warm as woodsmoke; the smile he hefts is much the same. “Does it strike a chord, Gendry Waters? A forlorn lad pining for his forest lass?” He chuckles at the silent set of that stubborn jaw, the narrowed eyes near stormy as the sea. “A lord would tell you to get on with ruling, a knight would advise you chase another pretty skirt… but we are only men up here, shoulder-to-shoulder with the sea and the sky and the songs that play by day and dark to crack open our hearts and hurt our weary heads — so I’ll say only what a man would say.” He flings his voice in a shout at the sea, laughing at its echoes.  “ _Go_ , my lad, while the snow is still thin on the ground.”

 

*

 

Halfway home, she takes a cup of ale at a moss-stoned inn. Snow blows white and wild without, but the air beside the hearth is sweet and smoky. As the day darkens, the inn empties out till only she and a lonely singer remain. He sits in the shadows thrown by the flames, plucking at his strings. High and sharp, the wood-harp’s song rises to twist with the woodsmoke, the singer’s sweet voice along with it.

For a while, she listens quietly, eyes intent on the fire burning merrily in the darkwood hearth. _And how she smiled and how she laughed, the maiden of the tree_ … Distantly, she turns to gaze at the singer’s strings; for a moment, it is as if his fingertips are plucking at her heart. _She spun away and said to him, no featherbed for me_ … Memory muddles behind her eyes, knits its aches between the crooks of her ribs, plunges longing like a knife into her belly. _I’ll wear a gown of golden leaves, and bind my hair with grass_ …

“But you can be my forest love,” she says softly to the flames as the singer sighs his last. “And me your forest lass.”

Her cup of ale is only halfway drained as she gets to her feet, leaves a silver coin for the singer on the worn tabletop. _East_. Her cloak is mixed parts fire-warmed and still damp from the day’s snows; with trembling fingers, she shakes it out, sweeps it across her shoulders. _East_ … She is still tying the laces beneath her chin when black-iron hinges creak and snowflakes sweep in as the inn’s door is thrown open.

She looks up — the beating of her heart drowning out the last strains of the singer’s sweet little song — to find eyes of storm shining warm and blue amongst swirling smoke and snow. Wordless, the look that passes between them; but it burns away her breath, sets a shapeless sound flooding from her tongue — _you_ — as he closes the space between them.

 

*

 

Softer by firelight, that much is still true: every curve and dip and ebb and rise of her. Bones and breath and blood-beat; the warmth of her skin pressed like some sweet, secret song against the valleys of his body. He dives for her neck, presses his lips to her throat, licks up the scent of her: wine, woodsmoke, wildflowers, winter, _Arya_ — exactly as she is now and always should be, sleep-heavy in his arms, soft as firelight in a world of ice, warm and good and _his_ even as the snow throws its frost-fingered shadows against the windowpane.

“I missed you,” she murmurs, grey eyes shimmering like sunlit water, drawing ripples across his heart, stoking waves in his belly. “ _Mmm_ … I missed you.”

He rolls onto her as her legs part beneath him; fingertips burrowing like arrowheads into the plump muscles of his shoulders, she rocks her hips and takes him deeper. Slowly, he pulls that sweet little sound up from her throat, feels its shape — _Gendry_ — as she presses kisses to his neck, his jaw, his chin, his lips. Her fingers twist into his dark hair, pulling him into her kiss as she draws him deeper still between her thighs; knees lifting, ankles link-locked over his broad brown back. He groans as she drags her teeth across his lip, then tips back her head, her hair a spray of ink across the pillows, sharp little nails slitting holes in the hay-stuffed mattress as her back arches like a well-honed bow and her lips part in a cry that shatters the quiet of the inn below.

Afterward, he picks skeins of hay from her hair. “It’s no featherbed.” He kisses her, feels the shape of her smile against his lips. “But then you’re no lady love and I’m no lord.”

“That’s the truth of it.” Her eyes are embers in the half-light, molten as metal-melt; warm grey rivers pulling his heart safe to harbour. “But you can be my forest love… and me your forest lass.”

They are tangled together tight as smokeberry vines; still, he draws her closer, tucks his face into the curve of her neck, his voice a sun-warm breath on her skin. “Come spring, I’ll wave you off on your little black ship… but for winter, for _now_ … stay with me.” He draws back, peeks at her through his lashes. “Stay with me, Arya Stark… please.”

“Winter could last another year,” she says softly, biting her lip to hide the smile that pulls at the strings of her face. “Or two or twelve…”

“Aye,” he murmurs, tasting that half-hidden smile as she opens her mouth on his. “I’m counting on that, my love.”

 

* * *


End file.
